Casual

...In a further, if comparatively trivial, manifestation of managerial prowess, I'd coordinated this operation with my sis ter, who lives across the street...

...But I'm far too chastened to imagine my resolves are worth much...

...I doubt I'll ever again so much as toy with the idea that I could be, Martha Stewart-like, on top of things...

...But I don't fool myself...

...Not only that, but I'd remembered to ask the team from Sonshine Cleaners, while they were at it with their tall ladders, to clean the gutter that runs along the roof at the back of the house—and to cut the magnolia tree back a foot or two, up at the roofline, where unless it's pruned from time to time it beats against the house...

...Not uniformly so...

...On my walks to and from the Metro, I scrutinize the front gardens I pass, stirring with life, and wonder how much new growth my tree will see this year...

...So one morning in mid-Decem ber, as I left for work, I stopped by my sister's house to have a word with the team from Sonshine (not an immigrant misspelling, by the way, as I first assumed, but a religious affirmation...

...Then I sashayed off to work—I admit it— feeling rather smug...

...The huge shiny leaves grow in clusters that make for sumptuous ready-made centerpieces and adornments for mantels and doors, and I was happy to share my bounty...

...Precisely the parts of the tree that gave me constant pleasure all year—shading the patio and providing a dense, dark, Henri Rousseau jungle outside my bathroom window...

...The window looks out now onto scrawny stumps...

...I told them I'd left the clippers out...

...My Spanish wasn't the only reason for their incomprehension...

...My tree had been hacked to pieces...

...Now, I am full of fine resolves about never again blithely delegating a task whose proper execution matters in the least...

...Too late, I realize, looking back, that my instructions to the window washers had met with blank stares...

...projecting patterned shadows at night onto the linen closet door—have been devastated...

...I greeted the men and did the best I could, in skimpy high-school Spanish, to remind them about cleaning the gutter and cutting back the tree...

...So this spring, I am quietly in mourning...

...The cuttings—and here's the stroke of genius—I would use to decorate for Christmas...

...The men had concentrated their well-intentioned efforts on the lower branches and near the house...

...I did notice that there were an awful lot of clippings in our small backyard, even whole branches...

...Some, surely...

...They came, bringing a Christmas tree and youthful appetites and ushering in a whirl of guests and outings that kept me busy during my ensuing week off, so that I never took the time to step outside and examine my tree...

...What was cut down in an hour last December took many years to grow...

...I'd failed to notice that the men were unfamiliar, a new crew who'd never been to my house before...

...CLAUDIA WINKLER...

...and they should leave the cuttings on the ground...

...Long branches that once reached almost to the verandah—so that in June, when the Magnolia Grandiflora justifies its name and the air is drenched with perfume from giant creamy blossoms that from a distance look like popcorn, I used to be able to lean over the balustrade and pick a flower for the table—those branches are gone...

...But I enjoyed supplying magnolia cuttings to friends and neighbors...

...They would move over to my house when they finished up at hers...

...The kids were getting home that night...

...Only after the hubbub of Christmas had subsided did I go out and inspect...

...The heap, in fact, was easily knee-high, far more than I remembered from previous years, and far more than I could use...

...I was sure I'd pulled off something of a home-management coup: For the third year in a row, I'd remembered to schedule the window washers just before Christmas, so the kids would come home to at least the illusion of a sparkling house...

...Needless to say, my pretensions to managerial competence also lie in ruins...

...About thirty years ago, I'm told, the previous owners of my house planted that tree from a seed...